Release Date: January 19, 2012In short, Try Not to Breathe lives up to its name.
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 272
Buy: Fountain Bookstore / Amazon
Description: Goodreads
Learning to live is more than just choosing not to die, as sixteen-year-old Ryan discovers in the year following his suicide attempt. Despite his mother’s anxious hovering and the rumors at school, he’s trying to forget the darkness from which he has escaped. But it doesn’t help that he’s still hiding guilty secrets, or that he longs for a girl who may not return his feelings. Then he befriends Nicki, who is using psychics to seek contact with her dead father. This unlikely friendship thaws Ryan to the point where he can face the worst in himself. He and Nicki confide in one another the things they never thought they’d tell anyone—but their confessions are trickier than they seem, and the fallout tests the bound of friendship and forgiveness.
This tangle of emotional moments will have readers holding their breath as often as the characters, but shock isn’t what will make you forget to breathe. Based on the description and the likening of this novel to Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (review), shock was what I was expecting. Well, it never came and I’m glad. There’s a quiet strength in this novel, and that’s what hooked me.
Ryan’s coping with life after his suicide attempt and release from the hospital. He’s waiting, like his friends Val and Jake from the hospital and so many other people in the world who are sick, depressed or suffering, for that mythical, magical moment where things “get better.”
